Way out West (incorporating Way up North)

it's minute.

Works are now proceeding apace on the demolition and (hopefully) reconstruction of the back garden wall. The garden which up 'til now has been a merry playground for the foxes and assorted fauna, now rings to sound of chainsaws, demolition hammers and the merry shrieks of the great british builder.

Actually, the labourers are all Polish, and they refuse tea, preferring to lounge in the shade of the apple trees and read poetry, whatever is the world coming to?

During the prolonged and somewhat agonising preamble to getting this work underway, we acquired the services of the Master and Commander (on a temporary transfer loan from The Deep North), his invaluable (and valuable), not to say exhaustive (and exhausting) investigations have resolved the whole tiresome mess to our greater satisfaction. At one point he was conducting an interrogation of the brick rubble in the back garden, and returned inside to announce that he had found a lizard among the bricks. Now some time in the past I did find a red eared terrapin hibernating in one of the borders, but can only assume that it had escaped from someone's vivarium, or had rather unwisely been released into the wild (under ideal conditions they can grow to about two feet long, and can easily bite a finger off, not only that but they are bad tempered and riddled with salmonella).

In this case I was pretty certain that it wouldn't be a lizard, twenty or so years ago my cat brought in a slow worm, but that is probably the extent of the probable lizard types to be found in London. On the other hand, it was very likely to be a smooth newt (triturus vulgaris), as I released quite a few many years ago, and their progeny are still hanging about if you know where to look for them. The Master and Commander was quite intrigued, I don't think his day job had ever brought him face to face with a newt before, and they really are rather cute, and as amphibians go, quite blameless in their habits.

Some days ago, when the start date had been agreed upon, we received an edict: when the demolition works are taking place, the newts are to be rescued and put in a box. The former part of that sentiment I wholly agree with, the latter is contradictory to newt behaviour, like miniature geckos they are pretty much able to climb any surface, putting them in a box is tantamount to issuing them with a challenge. We compromised, the labourers were instructed, and told to put them on the other side of the garden, where they could join the other half of the newt population. The labourers have been keeping a tally, and so far have moved 35 newts, add this to the dozen or so that I retrieved the day before they started, and that is quite a healthy population.

Almost totally off-topic I know, but I was intrigued to learn that there is a colony of European Scorpions (Euscorpius flavicaudis) living on Ongar tube station, no need to worry, they are not a stinging variety. Apparently there are colonies in Britain as far up as Oxfordshire if you are mindful to have a look.

posted by Lampy @ 8/15/2006 12:23:00 pm 1 comments

Plum news

Whilst I'm on, the Oullins Golden Gage is now coming into ripeness, the fruit, which is never better than a pale yellow gold in colour, has a marvellous subtle flavour. It is definitely not a keeper, once it approaches ripeness the fruit is ready and gone in 24 hours, I may have to cook some up and freeze them, there's a fabulous frangipane and greengage recipe that I've made in the past just aching for some of them.

The wasp trap, courtesy of the Nottingham correspondent, is extremely unpleasant, a disgusting melange of drowning and decaying insects, on the other hand, it has been very effective at keeping the little buggers off the plums. I guess there's no nice way to kill a wasp, so maybe drowning in sugar syrup is as good as it gets, rather like beer and slugs.

In a couple of weeks the Victoria will be doing its thing, this might well be time for more jam.

posted by Lampy @ 8/11/2006 11:34:00 pm 0 comments

oh rio, rio...

Hmm, it would appear that I'm being sent to Brazil. This, whilst on the face of it is a very attractive proposition, has its down side, I have to relight a show that I haven't seen, and which is very poorly documented.

So far I have been sent a series of useful images, these include: a pushchair, cheerleaders pompoms, a typing chair, a mixing desk, a smoke machine... and before this turns into the generation game, this is the information pack sent out to foreign venues.

Unfortunately I have come to realise that my predecessor didn't quite grasp the sacred trust that the relighter holds, and if in doubt made it up, this became apparent (I hope you noticed the adroit way with which I've avoided using the possible cliche 'came to light') when I was trying to reconstruct a different show in Berlin in the presence of the original lighting designer. 'I'm sure that's not right' he was prone to say, whilst ruffling frantically through his files. My difficulty was always that all I had to work from was the touring paperwork, and it was increasingly evident that this was a work of convenient fiction. The show I'm relighting is called 'bloody mess', and I suspect that the paperwork will be in a similar state.

There are two philosophies here, one, which is mine, is that you document effectively, do your best to recreate the designers' wishes and produce paperwork that would at least make it possible for someone to shove the show onto a stage if you were to be run over by a bus. The alternative, which I think I have encountered here, is to make yourself indispensibly attached to a show by retaining documentation, and vital information. This only works if you don't get a fulltime job somewhere else, and make yourself unavailable, ho hum.

posted by Lampy @ 8/11/2006 10:29:00 pm 0 comments